Anyone else got a DM like this and how to handle

[Flowerfairy101]

I shall start by saying I love DM very much and she has been a constant source of help and support to me in my adult life, but her anxiety is driving me mad. She has always been incredibly anxious and risk averse, if she is anxious she gets shouty and will try to control situations so that the source of her anxiety is eliminated. Example being she tried to discourage me from buying a car with a larger engine because she thinks I'd be more likely to crash, discouraging me from buying a house in case the housing market crashes, telling me I should adopt rather than have a child biologically because child birth is risky. I can't swim, didn't go on any school trips, never been on fairground/theme park rides, that sort of thing.

Naturally this has affected the person I've grown into, I spent a long time being totally risk averse and saying no to a lot of opportunities but I'm trying to manage my anxiety and involve myself in life more, which has been really good for me. My mums anxiety has always made me feel like she doesn't have any faith in me to make good decisions myself as she's always checking I've considered the most basic stuff and I have low self esteem and don't trust my own judgement. If I ever try and address the impact of her anxiety on me, she rants at me that she isn't in the mood for this , that I'm being silly and basically tells me I don't feel the way that I do. It might sound like minor stuff but it is a constant drip drip drip of negativity and doom.

I have a 9 month old DD who has now become the target of DM anxiety. Its built up over time to a point where I'm starting to feel really anxious about DD myself and if I'm going to see DM will be thinking what to dress her in/take to feed her that won't attract any negative comments. Examples are, asking me if I've checked DDs food is cool enough, is the car seat I've bought safety marked , don't I think DD should have a coat on (12 degrees outside, im in a T shirt), doesn't she need her nappy changing (no, I've just done it), she's worried the straps on her high chair are too tight and if she choked she couldn't lean forward, and on and on. DD is cruising now and has had some tumbles, if I mention this to DM she questions why I'm not watching her (I am as much as I can but short of not letting her pull herself up, I can't avert every slip). Every comment made I justify myself as in the brackets, or if say, she questions whether DD should have a certain toy and I say "its fine mum" she will bring it up again more insistently or just remove the toy herself. I feel like the situation is getting worse and worse the more time we spend with her. If I tell her a nice thing me and DD have done, trying to get some positive reinforcement,
she will either point out the risks or point out something else I should be doing, eg. Told her I'm singing lots to DD, she tells me I should be talking to her as well or she won't learn to talk (obviously I do talk to her too!) I've nicely asked her to back off a bit, leave the worrying to me, enjoy spending time with DD as her grandparent etc and then when that didn't work told her its making me feel like a shit inadequate mum (I struggled hugely with PND and feeling a lack of a bond with DD which she is well aware of) but she just brushes it off or huffs off with a " well don't see me then " or "its just how I am".

I don't want to stop seeing her but I really can't carry on with it how it is. I dont want another 18 years parenting under her watchful critical gaze. Eventually its going to start affecting DD too. Hqs anyone else got a DM like this and what do you do? I try to brush it off but as above, she just carries on with her agenda. I can't see what else I can do but go LC which is sad for all of us.

@Servalan thank you, I wish DM had some of your self awareness! I do frequently remind her of my age, proven ability to keep myself safe etc but it can be exhausting having to keep at it. Its definitely OCD style anxiety which is why she will repeat her concern over and over if I don't address it to her satisfaction, I can feel how uncomfortable she is with things still not being 'right' in her mind and she can't relax until they are. I suffer from this too so am quite aware of the pattern but also that you can never resolve everything so that you will feel eternally comfortable and relaxed, there will always be something else that pops up. Its like playing whack-a-mole!

Yes, she needs to learn that she has to sit with the uncertainty.

OCD treatment is that you don't reassure.

I think I used to repeat things if I felt that people hadn't heard them - it got to the point where I assumed I was being dismissed, like the boy who cried wolf, because everyone assumed it was my OCD - but this time it was REAL and noone was LISTENING! etc.

Which is why I think it might be helpful to acknowledge that you've heard - not that you accept - not to explain why your decision is better than hers - but just to say - yes, I've heard, but as an adult I can make my own decision now.

I didn't always have the self-awareness. I got told - brutally by some, compassionately by others. I found compassion better than brutality, but I did need to be told it wasn't acceptable

And it won't be solved overnight. I am not perfect. I still suffer from this condition - I still fuck up - and I am reaping what I sowed - with my teenager pushing boundaries hard and refusing to take anything I say seriously (other reasons for this too - but me being so ill when she was very little can't have helped).

It sounds like your mum is coming from a place of pain, which is why I advocate compassion and understanding - but ultimately she has to take responsibility for her own actions and get some help with this.

She thinks that she outranks you, I would suggest firm boundaries and send a very clear message that you are in charge of your own life, humour her, mock and disregard everything she says etc.
Put her in her place and keep her there.

@Servalan I'll try that. I think you're right with her worrying i haven't heard- ironically if she had a concern that was valid I would be likely to totally dismiss it because of the constant level of comments and concerns she has. I would just assume she was doing her usual thing.

I think it's worth too trying to get some support for yourself on how best to deal with this and protect yourself - as I say, the OCD UK and OCD Action websites I'm pretty sure have help and pointers for families - I should imagine other mental health resources have lines of support for family members too

He is also pissed off when I say 'don't forget your charger etc but I still do it as I know how important the bloody phone is to him
I think this is a very poor attitude; you KNOW it annoys him but do it anyway, because you know better?
I don’t agree with pps passing off a lot of this behaviour as concern, anxiety, much of it is controlling and arrogant. If you’re able to recognise it’s wrong or annoying then you can choose to keep your mouth shut and say nothing.

My mother is a bit like this - not quite as bad, but still enough to make me feel irritated at best and smothered at worst. I dealt with it by leaving home at 17 and spending a lot of my life living overseas... When I was in a different time zone and only in touch every week or two, she didn't know enough about my life to impose her anxieties on me.

Since I returned to the UK as a widowed single parent she has got much worse, but I am fairly blunt with her and say that I am not going to pander to her irrational anxieties and skewed views of risk. Once you start playing along with it, it just ramps up.

My main strategy now is not to tell her anything she might find remotely worrying, and not let her know where I am going or what I am doing so that she cannot demand to know I am home safely. I am a competent, independent woman in my 50s who has travelled alone all over the world ffs!

In her case I am sure it is genuine anxiety, exacerbated by her increasingly limited life and shrinking world (she is in her 80s, disabled and housebound - the less she gets out into the world, the more dangerous it probably all seems), not an attempt to be controlling, but the impact on me is the same. I provide care and support for her, but I do not let her anxieties rule my life.

Your poor mum sounds terror-ridden at every acorn falling. All the controlling behaviour is from fear and the fear governs her to the point that if anything really worrying happens then she blanks it because she just can't deal with it.

But it's had a serious impact on your life and you are a competent adult. Unfortunately her fear will almost certainly have a serious effect on your child; being around someone so fussy, doubting, negative and dis-empowering affects children as well as adults.

Given that you've spoken to her, I think a PP's advice early on in the thread is useful; ask her to stop, if she doesn't then leave, rinse and repeat and leave it longer between meetups. She is your mum, you clearly love her and miss her, but that may be a price you have to pay to keep your child away from such a deeply unhealthy atmosphere.

@HerMammy

He is also pissed off when I say 'don't forget your charger etc but I still do it as I know how important the bloody phone is to him I think this is a very poor attitude; you KNOW it annoys him but do it anyway, because you know better? I don’t agree with pps passing off a lot of this behaviour as concern, anxiety, much of it is controlling and arrogant. If you’re able to recognise it’s wrong or annoying then you can choose to keep your mouth shut and say nothing.

I agree totally. Loving someone is about respecting them, listening to them and letting them flourish on their own terms. If you want your child to feel loved, take it from someone who's been there: this behaviour has exactly the opposite effect.

The "I do it out of love" defence is so manipulative, and very convenient for the perpetrator - they can use it as a defence to themselves and others, and it doesn't get questioned. It's something my mum does, and it makes it very difficult to argue against her behaviour: why would I want to complain about being "loved"? I also see it as a competitive thing: she's the only person who treats me like this; anyone who treats me like an adult doesn't love me as much as she does. It's fucked up.

I agree @Miller2021 and the more you grow in your external life, the bigger the contrast seems, so if I get given a load of responsibility at work by my manager then see my mum who tells me she thinks my car tyres look flat and when did I last check them, it really makes you question yourself and who's opinion of your capabilities is 'right'. Its constant undermining of your own progress.

I do hear what folk are saying that feel controlled and abused and who have real anger for experiences that they have gone through with their own anxious parents. I agree that to be told that someone is doing something out of love when it is unhelpful at best and damaging at worst must be maddening.

I can't speak from the point of anyone else's mother - only from my own point of view, having been very ill with anxiety and having had struggles to stop it spilling over and affecting other people.

In my case, it comes from a place of sheer terror - an all-consuming fog of feeling that if I don't do something, something appalling will happen to others and it will be all my fault. It's a feeling that the whole world is going to blow up unless you warn people, but no one will listen. Generally the terror is physiological too, so it's all-consuming.

I think where the doing it out of love comes from is that if your thinking is catastrophic, then you are constantly terrified that people you care for will be grievously hurt - and it's fear that feels utterly real and blocks out all other fault. Everyone has bodily and emotional responses to danger - it's these fear responses that keep us safe. Just for some of us, the fear responses misfire until everything in the world feels terrifying.

I know it doesn't sound rational, but it's an illness. It's a glitch in brain chemistry. It isn't malicious. I find if I go off my medication I start to vanish down the rabbit hole again, so I know that I need to keep on top of it.

That is not to say it's OK. That is not to say it should be put up with. I am hugely conscious of the need to keep the illness away from my daughter. I suppose that I'm lucky that my illness is given a name and identified - and that I have been given the opportunity to work on it and to gain the awareness of the effect it has on others.

Not sure what I'm trying to say here. Maybe that it's not born out of an evil plan to control, out of arrogance or malice. Sometimes it's really important to see the illness as separate from the person.

That is not to belittle anyone's experience or to say it's OK. Just offering another lens to see it through.

blocks out all other thought - that'll learn me to read things through before I press "post"!

just to say servalan, I'm sorry you have to live with such a heavy burden. It sounds like you're handling it as well as possible, but it must take heroic efforts.

My DM is somewhat like this. She attempts to micromanage our lives. If ever I tell her about something that’s going on in our lives, she makes it her mission to solve it for us. Then she bombards us with her ‘suggestions’. She seems to see it as down to her to find solutions for everyone.

It isn’t anxiety so much, I think, in her case. She just sees it as her role. I think she’s also trying to make up for the mistakes she made when my siblings and I were growing up, when she failed to protect my DSis and me from being sexually abused by our F (who is now dead). She didn’t know, we do accept that, but she wasn’t around enough to know. (She was a workaholic businesswoman back then.)

She’s become very controlling, particularly with my DB, who is unable to function as an adult and has serious MH issues. With my DSis and me, she’s constantly trying to micromanage us, and her DGC. I’m learning to stand up for myself and for my DDs; I do tell her to back off now. Sometimes she employs the ‘waterworks’, she asks me whether I don’t trust her?

I have my own MH issues as a result of my childhood, PTSD and anxiety. (My DSis struggles with this as well.) I also have Long Covid now. So I protect myself from too much contact with her.

The problem really is that I find myself thinking, ‘that’s rich, coming from you’ or ‘it’s a bit late to be the protective mum/Granny’. OTOH, I know that she was devastated when my DSis and I told her about the abuse a few years ago and she bursts into tears whenever we bring up the past.

What I would say that I’ve learned is that she isn’t going to change - certainly not now at age 81! So I limit my contact with her, whilst maintaining some kind of relationship with her. (I admit that I was quite grateful for lockdown!)

I think you need to limit contact with your DM for the sake of your MH as well. Unfortunately, I think it’s unlikely she’ll change the way she is with you, but you can protect yourself and your DD from her.

ljsbear - thank you. That's really kind of you. I'm OK now - I live rather than exist these days. The medication helps a lot!

Lizzie - so sorry to read your story and for the trauma that you and your family has gone through

I have this OCD. Anxious thoughts about people coming to harm. It's horrendous. But it comes from a place of love. I have it under control but when the kids were little it was very hard. Your mum needs firm boundries and lots of love. She must be feeling such pain. Set yourself and her the limits , pick your battles and go forward but continue to love her and show you care.

@LizzieW1969 I'm also very sorry to hear of the trauma you experienced in childhood

Well I spoke to DM. She thinks that everyone perceives things in different ways and that its just my perception that her behaviour is undermining. She also doesn't feel she is anxious (which i find utterly gobsmacking because its widely acknowledged in our family and she has agreed in the past.) The general gist was that she thinks I'm reading too much into things she says and she doesn't know what she can and can't say to me because she thought she was giving helpful advice. She has given me helpful advice, but clearly she can't tell the difference between that and nit picking comments, or overly anxious worrying. Also she thinks that as a parent you don't always see danger in front of your child so a third person is well placed to point things out to you. Shes sad that I feel criticised but can't understand how I'm feeling like that from her comments. I explained how what she does makes me feel and why, and told her the comments have to stop but given she doesn't seem to even realise or want to realise what she's doing, I'd call that a stalemate. Not sure what to do now really!

Well done for speaking to her. It sounds like you approached the conversation sensitively but also with boundaries in place.

This is not a stalemate; it's just her first response with the intention of stoping you in your tracks. Deny, deny, deny.

This behaviour works for her, it's a hassle to change so she's going with this for now in the hope that you give up.

Now, you need to call her out, EVERY SINGLE TIME.

If she doesn't recognise what she's doing, she will then. With that, you'll see whether she has enough respect for you to address her behaviour or not. If not, you keep calling her out and leaving longer gaps in between visits.

Ultimately, you may have a fight in your hands but all is not lost yet

I feel really guilty that she's probably going to feel like she has to walk on eggshells around me now. I kind of assumed she knew she was being fussy and overbearing and the challenge would be getting her to stop but evidently not. I'll be doing that though @MeridasMum, otherwise its just going to carry on forever.

My DM is similar. She's also a lot more aggressive, sometimes she'll just say outrageous things in order to get a reaction/start an argument. Mostly now I ignore it or just tell her to stop but then I get "oh, now I'm not allowed to speak..."!
So my solution has been to dial it down to messaging and phone calls, she is much more pleasant and personable this way than she is face to face for some reason. We see her every few weeks, just for a couple of hours, and it's bearable. She gets on well with DC though (although they have now once seen the other side of her when she was hostile to me, out of the blue, and they were shocked).

Well done on starting the conversation, flowerfairy, and there is no need to feel guilty about making her question her behaviour - just remind yourself how it has impacted you over your entire life: not being allowed to learn to swim or go on school trips! being advised not to have a baby! Have you actually talked to her about all the restrictions she put you under growing up, and how abnormal that was?

Also, have you tried saying 'just don't give me advice unless I ask for it'? You might also ask her to think whether she would say the same things to any other adult, or is it just you?

I definitely agree with MeridasMum - keep picking her up on it. "Mum, you're doing it again. Mum, you're doing it again." And so on. But you will almost certainly have to keep your distance a lot more if you don't want her having an impact on your daughter.

@MrsPsmalls

Also tbh I don't care if I fall out with him, because his safety is more important. So I will still tell him about the risk even if I know he will shout at me or stop seeing me.

Wow, this is quite revelatory to me. You'd do this even if you make him feel like absolute shit every time, like he's clearly so stupid he can't remember anything, that he'll screw everything up unless you remind him? You'd still do it? So the compulsion over-rides everything - including the feelings of the person that you are talking to?

@Servalan. Incredibly insightful and useful posts. My mum is on this spectrum (and has left my sister and I with low self-esteem as a direct result of being "reminded" all the time). I have a good friend whose mum is at the same end of the spectrum as you - OCD and anxiety (medicated, but cbt has not had much impact) that absolutely dominated my friend's childhood and still affects her mental health today. She lives overseas and keeps low contact with her mum now, as she has realised that she cannot overcome this illness, no matter how 'good' or supportive or whatever she is to her mum. I'm going to tell her how you've described the compulsive behaviour, I think it might help her come to terms with some of this as she can't get past trying to rationalise what her mum does and says as a result of her illness.

Courage OP, it's hard. With my mum I'm quite strict now at saying "I didn't actually ask your advice on that". She has got a lot better at not butting in over the years. And I confess that I too live overseas, not
specifically to get away from my mum but when I had the choice, I didn't choose to move too close. I practice very strict news management too - often only telling her things after the event and rarely asking her opinion unless I actually want it.

@workwoes123
I dont even think it’s a compulsion, she’s well aware what she’s doing and that it pisses her son off, sheer arrogance and narcissism.

My mom does this and it’s totally and utterly annoying. She will say stupid things like watch you don’t break the TV, don’t forget this because you always do, don’t do this or that.
When I’ve pointed stuff out to her she will say “oh don’t be rediculous I won’t do that” so she doesn’t see the error of her ways.
I’ve tried to point stuff out to my mom and she blows up and walks off.
The way I deal with it now is barely see her maybe one a week and less and don’t really call her. We don’t have a close relationship like a typical mother and daughter but it’s how I get by. I moved out when I was 19.